Remember that game that we used to play as kids? The one that involved a metal wand that you have to pass through a wire maze? This type of game will require you to pass the metal wand completely through the maze without letting it touch each other. If you touch it, a light or sound goes on that signals that you lost the game.
Well it turns out, that game is akin to an open electrical circuit. This open circuit will only close when a metal object touches the wire – thus completing the circuit and letting the electric current flow. To help understand this concept better, let us create our very own wire maze.
What you will need:
- 5m stripped wire
- Pair of wire cutters
- 1 battery
- 1 LED bulb
- 1 metal paper clip
What to do:
- Shape the wire according to your own preference. You can make loops and waves. Just make sure both ends of the wire are at the end of the maze and can easily be connected to.
- One end of the wire should be connected to the battery – specifically the positive terminal.
- Get the other end and thread the metal paperclip onto it. Connect this end of the wire to the LED light.
- Connect the LED bulb to the negative terminal of the battery.
- Move the paper clip around the wire and try not to touch it. If the LED bulb lights up, you just touched the wire with the metal paper clip.
You can also opt to use a noisemaker instead of an LED bulb.
What just happened:
What we created is a kind of open electrical circuit. The current comes from the battery but it will not cause the LED bulb to light up because the circuit is not closed. When the metal touches the wire, the circuit is closed and thus the current will cause the LED bulb to light up.
Here is another version of this steady hands game.
Check out our other experiments with batteries!
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